A grave in which the burial chamber was reached by a vertical shaft, the burials themselves placed at the bottom of a deep narrow pit, used in the early Bronze Age. The tomb was usually rectangular and the burial chamber was at its base. After the burial was done, the chamber was roofed and the shaft above it filled in. Shaft graves occur in various parts of the world and are not all of the same date. The most famous examples are the richly furnished tombs at Mycenae. At Mycenae there Circles A and B, which may have stone markers. The vertical shaft tomb was also characteristic of Bronze Age China and it was used by the Shang elite of northern China.